


What's Love Got to do With It?

by Mikey (mikes_grrl)



Category: due South
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikes_grrl/pseuds/Mikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vecchio is a changed man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Love Got to do With It?

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who might be interested in this has probably already read it, so feel free to skip. :) This was posted somewhere else, and I'm just re-posting it here for my own record keeping type of thing. I've changed it a tiny bit -- I originally wrote it in a huge rush and it really needed editing to tighten it up, so I've done that.

Ever since he was a young, skinny kid with a crush on the girl who helped him with his math homework, Ray thought that falling in love changed everything. When he fell in love, it was a big, huge _event_ that he felt down to his bones. Every time, it was amazing and beautiful and rocked his world, whether it was Ange or Irene or Agent Chapin. He was a romantic at heart and he was willing to get ribbed by the guys on it, because he understood what it meant to fall in love and he enjoyed riding that wave. Love was life changing, mind altering, and soul shifting, and something that important deserved respect.

It took him a while to figure out he was wrong.

Not about love, which was just as important as he always thought it should be. Instead he realized that the hopeless infatuation that he always thought was love really never changed anything. He and Ange divorced; Irene's life ended in tragedy; and Chapin just disappeared. He shared beautiful moments with each of them and yes, in a way, they affected his life. But after the grief of loss came acceptance and business as usual and whatever he felt for them did not change _him_.

What did change was the rest of his life. He met a crazy Canadian Mountie one day and despite his ongoing frustration with just about everything Fraser said and did, Ray's life changed utterly and completely. Ray woke up one day and realized that in fact he, himself, had changed. His fun, crazy bright shirts had all become somber and mature; his trip once a week to the basketball court had turned into daily jogs and visits to the gym for weight training; and his case load was half what it used to be because now he was solving crime and not chasing red herrings. Instead of waking up late to rush through coffee and traffic, he was up early to get his workout done so he could pick up Fraser sharply at 7:40 am. He stared at himself in the mirror, at the better man he had become, fixing his tie and wondering what Benny would say about this revelation. Ray chuckled, knowing there was in Inuit story in there _somewhere_.

That morning when he came downstairs, his mother gave him a suspicious look and asked him why he was so happy. He shrugged, smiling, as she inspected his face carefully and eventually asked him if he was in love. He stopped in surprise, then looked down at himself for a moment before kissing his mother on the cheek and telling her he had to get going. She laughed and told him to hurry, since Fraser was waiting for him.

He kept smiling the whole drive over to Racine, because he realized that he had been wrong yet again: true love does change everything.

#####


End file.
